An End to All Things
by PreciousJax
Summary: Even the best covers can be blown. Then you're left on your own, running for your life, relying only on the most unlikely of allies. (*Chapter 3/12*)
1. In The Begining

1 An End to All Things  
  
Part I – In The Beginning  
  
  
  
  
  
1.1 It's just one of those days you don't want to wake up…  
  
It was a rare day when Sydney overslept. She had always been one of those monsters of society known as a morning person. It had annoyed everyone she'd ever lived with, starting with her father, ending with Francie. She'd be up and ready to go, starting on her second cup of coffee as everyone else in the house was just rolling out of bed.  
  
But weeks and weeks of stress, missions and counter-missions, not to mention the text book reading that she was falling severely behind on had built up at once. When Sydney's alarm clock had finally broken through the deep sleep she'd been in, she was already ten minutes late for a meeting with Sloane. Even if she'd gone in her pajamas she would have been at least thirty minutes late. As it was, she managed to make it only forty minutes late, looking like hell, and getting stares from the rest of the agents in the room as she took a seat.  
  
"Thank you for joining us, Miss Bristow," Sloane murmured with an icy glare. "Now that the we're almost done."  
  
Sydney tapped her fingers lightly against her leg to keep herself from fidgeting more openly. She had no idea what was going on, obviously something new now that the Rimbaldi case was coming to a close. New names and faces, new information that was absolutely meaningless to her, at least till she could borrow Dixon's notes. The last thing she wanted, nor needed, was for Sloane to start hassling her.  
  
Oversleeping really sucked.  
  
The meeting was over less than five minutes after her arrival, Sloane still glaring at her. Dixon smiled warmly at her as he stood to leave. Sydney smiled back when he quietly dropped a slim pile of papers into her open briefcase. "Thank you." She mouthed subtly.  
  
Sloane didn't say a word, but Sydney remained in her seat after the room had emptied, an unspoken request, which she reluctantly followed. Excuses were on the tip of her tongue, but she bit them back. "You've always been punctual, Miss Bristow, and I hope this was only a single occurrence." Sloane said slowly.  
  
Sydney inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment, but kept her face impassive. "I apologize." She said simply. "I'll get caught up on the case details before I leave for class."  
  
Sloane's face relaxed, small lines around his eyes appearing as his mouth turned up into a kind smile. "I expect that you will, but that's not why I needed to talk to you."  
  
Sloane stared at her, long and hard, as if awaiting a response from her. Something in his stare just made her skin crawl, and she tapped her pen against the edge of the table. "So, what's the problem?" She asked when he still didn't speak.  
  
"As you know, we've had several security breeches this year. More, in fact, then we've had in the last decade. Last night, we found out where our enemies have been getting information about us. They've been getting it from you, Sydney."  
  
"Are we back to this, again?" Sydney snapped. "Haven't we been through this, like eight times?"  
  
"Ah, you always did have a flair for dramatics, Sydney, but you are right. You've proven your loyalty to SD6 several times now. Unfortunately, the leak has been traced back to you in an obscure way." Sloane picked put a thick gray file and sat down next to her.  
  
"What does that mean?" Sydney asked suspiciously.  
  
"When we began monitoring your activities after your return from your…extended leave, it was because we were suspicious of you. Then, after you proved your loyalty to us, we continued monitoring you. The security section noticed a man, who they believe to be an agent, following you and reporting your movements to KDirectorate."  
  
"There is no way." Sydney said adamantly. "I would have noticed if someone was tailing me. I knew I had your security team following me the week that it started."  
  
Sloane slid the file in front of her silently. Sydney flipped the cover open with the slightest trace of annoyance before her hand froze.  
  
It wasn't the unknown KDirectorate agent she expected. "His name is Michael Vaughn." Sloane began. "We're not exactly sure why he's following you, but if you'll look through the rest of the pictures there…" He made a vague hand gesture. "I think the facts will become clear."  
  
Sydney looked at the next picture and her stomach start to churn. She saw herself, back to the camera, flipping through a rack of CDs. A few feet to her left, Vaughn stood, leaning against a wall and flipping through a magazine. She remembered the meeting clearly.  
  
Vaughn had congratulated her on the productivity of her counter-mission. Sydney had asked when she was going to get her employee of the month pin. He'd risked looking up to make eye contact, shooting her an impish grin. He dropped the magazine back in its slot then made his exit, brushing close enough to her for her to have briefly felt him breath on the back of her neck. She'd left the store with a similar smile on her face.  
  
She saw the exact scene replayed in countless pictures. She watched Vaughn walk away and out of the store in dreadfully slow motion as she flipped through the pictures.  
  
There were more, way to many more. Her and Vaughn at the Florist's shop. Vaughn sitting behind her at the cyber café. One set of pictures was particularly surprising. Vaughn sitting in non-descript black car in front of her house. "How can this be?" She muttered, her face going pale when the implications of these pictures began swimming through her mind.  
  
"Don't worry about it, Sydney." Sloane stood behind her and rubbed her shoulders. Something akin to fear, but not quite, ran down her spine like a drop of ice cold water on overheated skin. "It took Security a long time to realize it too." He patted the back of her neck one last time before moving away to walk across the room.  
  
"What's happening to him?" Sydney asked. She forced herself to beat back the wave of panic rising in her throat. "That is, how is the situation being handled?"  
  
"He's being dealt with this morning." Sloane said. "Don't let it worry you at all. By lunchtime this will all have been over with. I wouldn't have told you at all, but I want you to be on higher guard than normal. If you didn't notice one person, there might be more. Whoever sent this Vaughn man could very well send another."  
  
"I'd prefer to handle this situation myself. I'd like to take care of this on my own, since it was me he was following."  
  
"No." He said firmly. "He's been tailing you, he'd recognize you in a second. Not to mention, I've already made the appropriate arrangements."  
  
"Arrangements." Sydney repeated and felt her stomach knot.  
  
Sloane studied her face. "You look upset."  
  
"Well, I just found out that I've been being tailed for at least the last month, since I haven't been to that shop for at least that long." She snapped, running a hand through her hair, her mind whirling. She began to tap her foot with impatience.  
  
"Sydney, do not let this bother you. Don't let it set you back." Sloane ordered. "Go catch up on what you missed this morning, go to your Lit class, and forget about this."  
  
Sydney nodded, standing to gather the files and slip them into her bag. "Do you mind if I take this?" She asked, holding up the files containing Vaughn's pictures. "I want to study them so this doesn't happen again."  
  
"Sure." Sloane said, the odd smile still playing across his face.  
  
Sydney quickly exited, her heels clicking loudly on the floor as she strode down the hallway. Someone said her name, but she ignored him as she headed for the exit. It was hard, but she managed to look relatively normal, not portraying the thousands of conflicting thoughts rushing through her head.  
  
She never panicked. Not even when she'd first found out the truth about SD6, she'd still remained relatively calm.  
  
But right now she was very close to breaking out in a run, she was already sweating,  
  
"Sydney!" She didn't stop when Dixon caught up to her, sparing him barely a glace. 'Act natural' she reminded herself.  
  
"Yes?" She slowed her pace slightly, but kept moving.  
  
"Everything alright? First your late, now you're practically running out of here again."  
  
"I'm fine, I just have to get to class. I left my research paper at home, so I need to get all the way back there first."  
  
"Okay." Dixon said, staring bewilderedly as she sped up again. "Do you want to get together later to get updated on the Boldari case?"  
  
"I'll call you!" Sydney called, pushing out the doors and into the main bank. She pushed out of the doors and onto the sidewalk, from dim florescent lighting into bright sunlight. Soon as she was clear from the door, she broke off into a run, nearly knocking over a man carrying a large bouquet of flowers. She muttered an apology, but never slowed as she grabbed her cell phone from her bag. She dialed as she unlocked her car. "I need to speak to Agent Michael Vaughn." She shouted into the phone.  
  
"I'm sorry, he's not here right now." The bewildered receptionist replied mechanically, and Sydney felt the urge to scream. "May I take a message?"  
  
"Listen to me, I need to know where he is. It's an emergency."  
  
"I can not give you that information. Can I direct your call to someone who can help you?"  
  
"Damn it." Sydney hit her steering wheel with the palm of her hand. "Get me Devlin. Tell him Sydney Bristow is on the phone and that SD6 has IDed Vaughn."  
  
There was a muffled noise, presumably the phone hitting the desk. Sydney, without waiting for Devlin, ended the call and dialed again.  
  
"Hello, you've reached Michael Vaughn. I can not take your call right now, please leave a message."  
  
Sydney debated the safety of leaving a message. If his phones were tapped, they'd both be screwed. If she had to chose between saving his life and risking exposure to SD6…  
  
"Vaughn, this is Syd, SD6's has made you. Get the hell out of LA, they've put a hit out on you." She paused. "Please be careful." She added on an afterthought.  
  
She disconnected, swearing again. It wasn't more than thirty seconds before her phone rang again. "Hello?"  
  
"This is Devlin, I just got a message that they've--"  
  
Sydney cut him off, falling back on training. She rattled off the important facts with cool control. "I need Vaughn's home address."  
  
"No, if SD6 is monitoring him, they'll see you in a second. I've sent a team of agents to his house already."  
  
"But I'm already on route, I know he lives just outside--"  
  
"No, Agent Bristow, and that's an order." Devlin interjected. "If there is a hit on Vaughn, the last thing will help him is you showing up. Maintain normalcy, we'll be in touch."  
  
"You want me to act normal?!" It took Sydney a moment to realize that the line had gone dead. "You've got to be kidding me." Sydney executed a quick U turn, breaking several traffic laws, and headed towards her house.  
  
She might have just saved Vaughn's life. Or she might have just gotten him killed.  
  
  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*  
  
  
  
"Come on, please?" Alice pleaded. "I could have it back here in like, I don't know, a half hour."  
  
"I need to get into work." Michael said as he buttoned his dress shirt. "And you suck at driving stick, I'm not going to have you drop my transmission two blocks down the street."  
  
Alice narrowed her eyes. "That was a long time ago. Quit holding it against me."  
  
"That was two months ago, and you're not borrowing my car." Despite himself, Michael grinned at her. "If I had time to go with you, to monitor you, then maybe I'd let you drive it."  
  
"That would be so great, really." Alice threw her hands over her head with frustration. "When using a car to pick up a guy, the last thing I want is my stalker ex-boyfriend sitting in the passenger seat reminding me to put it in first."  
  
"First off, you should have never told the guy at the coffee shop that you had a vintage T-bird when you don't. And second, why am I the stalker ex- boyfriend when you're the one over here all the time trying to steal my stuff?"  
  
"Because it gets me sympathy." Alice said with a sweet smile. "I use it to pick up guys at bars. But that's not the point. If you'd just let me go now, I could have it back by the time you leave." She hissed, narrowing her eyes when he shook his head again. "Mikey." She said in a low voice, causing him to wince at the horrible nickname. She only used it when she was about to break out the blackmail. "Remember my friend Carrie, the one whose number you've been bugging me for? I bet she'd find that story about you hitting on that transvestite to be pretty funny."  
  
"Hey, it was dark, I was drunk. And he was really convincing. Did I mention I was drunk?" He said quickly.  
  
"Everything time any one brings it up." Alice said with a smirk. "But I always forget those little details."  
  
"You *so* wouldn't." Michael paused, the tie dangling off the end of his fingers as he thought about it. "Okay, never mind. You would." He pulled the tie around his neck and began to knot it. "Go ahead, it's not worth you burning out my clutch."  
  
Alice let out a short screech. Vaughn sighed when the pillow hit him on the back. In the two years that he and Alice had dated before their break up three months ago, he'd learnt the stages of her temper quite well. When she started throwing things, it wasn't good. At least, since she had been sitting on his bed, the closest thing to her had been a pillow. Once, he'd ended up with six stitches when they'd been arguing in the kitchen. She'd felt really bad afterwards, but it was safe to say she won most of their fights after that. She liked to blame it on the Irish side of her family, saying she couldn't help a genetic tendency for violence. He had agreed with her that it was genetic, but blamed it on her mother, who was just as insane as she was. Then she threw a shoe at him, and he shut up.  
  
"Yo voy a castrarle a menos que usted me deje pedir prestado su coche." She muttered, she stood, crossing her arms, and walked out of the room.  
  
Michael winced once again. "I speak Spanish too, Alice." He reminded.  
  
"I know." She called back sweetly.  
  
Michael finished knotting his tie, then grabbed a jacket out of his closet and tossed it over his arm. It still surprised him how close Alice and he had remained. The old "Let's just be friends" cliché was the most pathetic way of breaking up. They hadn't gone that route, themselves, it was more or less an all out screaming match, two weeks of hurt feelings, then Alice had just shown up and wanted a favor. She claimed to be a chef to her latest conquest, and she hadn't made so much as a cookie since she'd burnt down her kitchen when she was fourteen trying to do so. Alice had a little problem with exaggerations.  
  
He wasn't surprised to find her sitting on his kitchen counter with a mug of coffee in one hand. She pointed to a second mug next to the coffee machine. "Maybe if you get some caffeine, you'll stop being such a brat."  
  
"Look, Al, I'm sorry, I need to get to work." Michael sipped slowly and nearly wept with gratitude. The four hours of sleep he'd gotten hadn't been the most restful, so he knew he'd be living off it by the end of the workday.  
  
"News flash, you have two cars. And you don't even take your T-bird to work, so just give me the keys, and you'll never even know it was gone."  
  
Michael felt himself giving in.  
  
"Please, Mike, please please please please please?!" Alice begged hopefully.  
  
Michael swore under his breath. He turned on his heel, walking back in his room to grab a set of keys. "You break it, you bought it." He said before tossing her the keys.  
  
Her squeal of sheer feminine delight was enough to make a dog's ears bleed.  
  
She hopped off the counted, bounding across the room. "Thank you!" She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek. "Thank you so much! I owe you big time!"  
  
"You always do." He said uncomfortably. "Just don't wreck it or anything, please."  
  
"I wont, I swear." She squealed again. "Now Travis will have no chance of resisting me."  
  
Michael rolled his eyes and picked up his keys. Last week it had been Mark the car salesman. Now it was Travis the Starbucks guy. He was just waiting for Bubba the biker or George the rich old guy. Then she'd want him to teach her how to ride a motorcycle or help her understand stock reports.  
  
Alice was still babbling about how great Travis was when she bounded down his stairs. Vaughn nodded, pretending to listen as he turned on his cell phone. "Call me tonight and let me know how it goes." He called.  
  
He dialed his voicemail as Alice opened the driver's door and climbed in. He had a half a second to wonder why Sydney Bristow had risked calling his cell phone before he absorbed her words.  
  
1.2 "Vaughn, this is Syd, SD6 has made you…'  
  
He didn't know what it was, instinct or what, but his blood turned to ice. "Alice!" He called, jogging down the stairs. "Alice! Get out of the car!"  
  
He watched in slow motion as Alice pulled her seatbelt on, then turned and waved with one hand, reaching for the ignition.  
  
The force of the explosion knocked him backwards. The back of his head slapped against the railing on his fall. The bright, blinding blue of the morning sky registered in his head a moment before he blacked out. 


	2. You're Never Alone

A/N: Super huge giant unspeakable thanks to jeanne for all her help wit this chapter. It was super late as it was, but it would have been a couple weeks more if not for her amazing help.   
  
An End to All Things  
  
Part II - You're Never Alone  
  
Sydney rushed into Devlin's office, ignoring the security officer that attempted to stop her. "Where is he? What happened?" She said, shoving the uniformed officer's hand off her upper arm. "Is he okay?"  
  
Devlin sighed, then gestured the security officer away. "Its okay, thank you Richard." With a final glare, which Sydney met mutually, the officer let go of Sydney's arm and walked away. "Please sit down, Agent Bristow."  
  
Sydney studied Devlin's morose face. "That's okay." She said slowly. "I think I'll stay like this."  
  
Devlin inclined his head and stood himself. "At approximately eight twenty this morning, a explosive device detonated outside Agent Vaughn's home. We believe it was C4, wired under the gas tank, set to detonate upon turning the ignition." Devlin held up a hand when she sucked in a quick breath. "Agent Vaughn is fine, he was knocked unconscious momentarily after the explosion." Sydney's sigh of relief was short lived.  
  
"Then who triggered the explosive?"  
  
"A civilian, one Alice McGrath, was killed." Devlin said, his face calm, but his voice sad.  
  
Sydney thought of the bright-eyed blonde, who she'd only known through the picture on Vaughn's desk. Another fatality in a war that she hadn't even been involved with, that she hadn't even known about. "How is Vaughn taking it?"  
  
Devlin bit back the harsh reply. "Vaughn is...pretty shaken up by the whole ordeal." He said simply. "They've got him in a safe house and tomorrow he's being placed in witness protection."  
  
Sydney stared with disinterest at the scuff on her leather boot. The man had just suffered a tragedy and she was more concerned with the fact that she was going to lose her handler. It was selfish, but she couldn't help it. "I want to see him." She said softly. "Can you arrange it?"  
  
"Absolutely not." Devlin shook his head. "The man is lucky to be alive, the last thing he needs is to be put in further danger by arranging for you two to meet."  
  
"I'll go to him." Sydney began heatedly. "All you need to do is give me the address, I can be in and out in a few minutes."  
  
"No, Agent Bristow, I will not allow it." Devlin said adamantly. "It's to dangerous. The fact that you are here at all is inadvisable and against protocol. But I understand why you are here, Agent Vaughn is fine, and now I'm going to ask you to get home before SD6 becomes suspicious of your movements."  
  
Sydney looked directly into Devlin's eyes. "Please. I need to see him."  
  
Devlin sighed heavily and fell back into his chair. "I am well aware that your and Vaughn's relationship is more than what it should be." Sydney's head whipped up with surprise, a denial automatically at the tip of her tongue. "Please don't, Sydney." The very rarity of his use of her first name was enough to silence her. "I never felt it was a threat, up until this point. I know the immense pressure you're under, or I would have reassigned him as soon as he came to me." Sydney continued to stare at him blankly. "About two weeks ago, Agent Vaughn came to me with concerns that his ability as a handler would be hindered by the personal relationship you two had developed."  
  
Sydney stirred up the energy to form a smile. "Personal relationship. You make it sound like we were something more than friends."  
  
"Friends or more than that, Agent Bristow, sentimentality such as it is put you, and the agency at extreme risk. Vaughn realizes this risk, and requested to be reassigned. I, after consideration, kept him on as your handler. As I said, you're under extreme amounts of pressure here, with your family and with SD6, and losing the handler that very well might be keeping you sane wouldn't be the smartest move."  
  
Sydney was offended. "I can do my job, Devlin." She spit. "And so can Vaughn. Our friendship is no one's business but our own and doesn't affect the job I'm doing. Vaughn or no Vaughn, I'm in this because I want SD6 taken down. Don't tell me that you think I'm going to lose my mind if I'm reassigned. Yes, I'm under pressure, but I've been under pressure since I was recruited. Maybe if you had reassigned Vaughn when he'd asked for it, this could have been prevented."  
  
Devlin shut his eyes briefly and she instantly felt guilty for lashing out at him. "Don't you think I've considered all of this?" He said, his voice barely audible.  
  
Sydney and Devlin each sat, staring at individual spots on opposite walls. "Agent Bristow, I'm sorry that you won't have a chance to say goodbye face to face. Its just entirely too risky. If you'd like to write him a letter or something, I can be sure he gets it. But that's all I can do." Devlin's voice was firm and Sydney knew she had no chance of getting around him.  
  
"Thank you." She said stiffly. `A letter,' She thought, `that's just not good enough.' "When will I be assigned a new handler?"  
  
"You already have been. Agent Gloria Hopkins will be in touch within the next couple days."  
  
Sydney didn't so much as blink as she exited the office.  
  
She saw Weiss out of the corner of her eye. He was standing in the agent's break room, and apparently, he took his job as a handler very seriously. He picked up every single one of the doughnuts that sat in a flimsy cardboard box. Then, in picking out the one he wanted, he put the box back on the table, knocking the powder jelly doughnut out of his hand and onto the linoleum floor. Sydney winced when he bent over and picked it up again, taking a large bite. Only men thought that the ten-second rule was really okay.  
  
"Agent Weiss." She said walking down the hallway. He turned, shooting her a lopsided grin.  
  
"Good morning Agent Bristow." He said.  
  
"It's three o'clock." Sydney reminded.  
  
"Oh." Weiss scratched the back of his head. "Want a doughnut?"  
  
Sydney looked at the box, and then gave him a dazzling smile. "That's okay. But I do need a favor from you."  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*  
  
Vaughn continued to lie extremely still, ignoring the sound of someone entering his room. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He didn't want to see anyone. He just wanted to be alone.  
  
"Look, he's sleeping, let's just go." He heard Weiss's loud whisper. "Come on, Sydney, you're going to get me into trouble."  
  
"You got me this far, if you want out, go ahead." He heard Sydney's tempered snap, and it almost made him want to smile. Almost.  
  
"He's asleep!" Weiss insisted. "The doctor told him to rest, let's just come back later."  
  
"Well, I'll wait. You can go if you feel you need to. I can get back on my own." Sydney shot back, opening the door and slowly tiptoeing inside.  
  
He heard Weiss's muttered profanity just before the heavy footfalls. Since he didn't hear the door slam, Vaughn presumed that Weiss was making himself at home with the security guards in the kitchen.  
  
Sydney pulled a chair up next to his bed, sitting down quietly. If he hadn't been watching her, he wouldn't even know where she was. The woman was trained to sneak around, and she was damn good at it.  
  
He couldn't explain why he felt suddenly and inexplicably embarrassed to be watched while he was pretending to be asleep.  
  
"I know you're awake, Vaughn." Sydney said in a quiet voice. "Nice try, though, you almost had me convinced."  
  
She was pleased when his mouth quirked up into the tiniest of smiles. "Someone pretending to be asleep is usually a good sign that they want to be left alone." He shot back, keeping his eyes closed.  
  
Sydney remained where she was, staring quietly at Vaughn's face. "Do you want to be left alone?" She said after a long pause.  
  
"Yes." He snapped, opening his eyes to glare at her. Sydney made no effort to move, merely crossing her legs and leaning back. He watched the motion, infuriated. "Why the hell did you ask me what I wanted when you weren't going to listen anyway?"  
  
"Because I've been where you are now, and trust me, the last thing you need is to be sitting here by yourself, going over every little detail, figuring out how to blame this on yourself. "  
  
Vaughn clenched his eyes shut, fighting to stay in control. "Look, Syd, I'm fine. Thanks for your concern and all, but all I really want now is to get some sleep."  
  
Sydney steadily looked at him. "How long did you know Alice?" She said calmly.  
  
Vaughn sighed, knowing full well that Sydney wasn't going to be easy to get rid of. "Four years." He said curtly. "I met her briefly five years prior to that, but we didn't keep in touch."  
  
"Where did you meet?"  
  
Vaughn swore and slid from bed, stalking across the room to stare out of the one tiny window the room provided. It had a hairline crack through one of the four panes and it was difficult to see through the haze of dirt that no one would ever bother to clean off. "I shared a apartment with a friend of mine while we were in grad school. His cousin was turning twenty-one, we went to the party to get free alcohol. I got really drunk, hit on the cousin. She in turn, kicked my ass."  
  
Sydney smiled softly. "Alice?"  
  
"Yeah." Vaughn didn't realize that the corners of his lips had turned up into the tiniest smiles. "Then a couple years later, my friend was getting married, we went to a strip club." Sydney angled her chin. "For. His. Bachelor. Party." He said with a glare.  
  
"Whatever you say." Sydney said, pressing her lips together.  
  
"Anyways. I was the designated driver, so I was pretty much sober. The groom, on the other hand, wasn't even close to that state of mind. He tried to hit on one of the dancers, she kicked his ass. I laughed for a little while, then went to drag Kevin home so maybe he could save himself from a total hangover for his wedding day. Kevin was out cold. Because he was a former linebacker, I couldn't exactly get him to my car on his own. The dancer took pity on me and began to help me move him. She recognized me before I recognized her."  
  
"Wait." Sydney interrupted. "Alice was a stripper?" She totally couldn't imagine it. Vaughn with a stripper.  
  
"Alice has been everything." He replied. "Nothing held her interest for more than a month. She's been everywhere, done everything." Vaughn smiled, fondly remembering the six days she'd spent as cashier at a retail electronics store. She'd stomped in the door, thrown her keys across the room in a testament to her years as a softball player, put a crack in his aquarium, then calmly sat down and ordered a pizza. She muttered something about the bitchy supervisor and EAS tags and that was the end of it. The next day she was applying as a college librarian. "She had a employment record that you could wrap around the block, but she could never find what she really wanted to do. About eight months ago, she figured it out. She would disappear into a quiet room for hours on end, sitting there with her computer writing away. The only contact I'd have with her for three days at a time, even though we were living together, was her calling my cell phone and asking me to bring her a glass  
of water and a sandwich."  
  
"She'd finally found her calling?" Sydney asked quietly.  
  
"About a month ago she got a reply from one of the editors she'd sent some stuff to. They were very interested in seeing some more of the novel she was working on. She was..." Vaughn trailed off, his face going blank. "She was..." Grief hit him suddenly, the careful control he'd managed to keep in place since the explosion falling away in the blink of an eye.  
  
Sydney waited him to continue. "Vaughn?" She said questioningly after about thirty seconds of utter silence. "Hey. Vaughn?" She repeated when there was no sign of response.  
  
The sound of surprise that came from her lips was involuntary. Vaughn slammed his fist into the wall twice, in quick succession, the muffled but distinct sound of bone cracking against wood permeating her hearing. For half a second she froze in shock before instinct took over, flying out of her chair and around the bed. "Hey, stop it!"  
  
By the time she reached him, he'd pressed his palm against the wall and had laid his head on it, his eyes tightly shut. "Hey, lets go sit down." She said, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "Come on." He was tense, so tense that it was impossible to move him; her efforts to guide him to the bed where he couldn't hurt himself anymore were in vain.  
  
"I killed her." His voice was whisper soft, and she couldn't be sure if she really heard him speak.  
  
"You didn't." Sydney whispered back. "No you didn't." She repeated firmly.  
  
"I killed her." He said again, rocking back and forth slightly. "She's dead. I killed her."  
  
Sydney felt tears stinging at her own eyes. "This isn't your fault. Don't blame yourself, please, blame the people who did this. Blame Sloane, for ordering the hit. Blame me, if you want to, for getting you involved in this whole mess. But don't blame yourself."  
  
"I shouldn't have let her borrow the car. Dieu. Mon dieu." He was trembling slightly, his words running together into a jumbled mess, English and French blending together. "Je devrais avior su. I should have known. I should have done something. I could have gotten to her, gotten her out." He could remember the smell of burning flesh, seeing the smoking remains of the car he'd spent hours upon hours restoring when he was in college. The felt the restraining hands of the agents dragging them towards the sedate black car, he could still hear the echo of his scream, not knowing it was his until the agent put a hand over his mouth. "God. Alice, she didn't even know... Sa famille..."  
  
"It's okay." Sydney laid her forehead against his bare shoulder, needing to steady herself. She was familiar to mourning herself, having gone through it more times then healthy in this year alone. She knew the different kinds, the kind that hit you so hard that you didn't think you could even more, not less move on, how it had been when Danny had been killed. The kind that was slow and quiet and drained you till you were empty, the way she'd felt when she'd been told the truth about her mother. But watching Vaughn, who'd she rarely seen express any emotion at all, the man who it was hard for even her to read... Watching him suffer, watching him lose the cool control that had always been one of his strongest suit... "It's okay." She murmured again.  
  
"I'm going to kill him." His voice took on an edge, pure murder and latent violence. The same kind of latent violence that was unexpected, but not unjustified. "I'm going to kill him myself."  
  
"No you're not." Sydney whispered. "Because I want in on it."  
  
They stood in silence for a long moment before Vaughn reached behind him and took Sydney's hand. His grip was tight, almost to the point of bruising, but she squeezed back. She shifted slightly, leading him back towards the bed. She couldn't exactly place how, but they ended up sitting on the floor with their backs against the bed, Sydney's arm still around his shoulders, and her hand still in his. His eyes were tightly closed, his face nearly expressionless, except for the tight lines around his mouth.  
  
Neither of them knew how long they sat like that, in any other situation they would have probably fallen asleep like that. Anyone else who walked into the room would probably think they were. Neither of them knew who was comforting who, nothing more needed, nor could be said.  
  
"Do you know what I'm going to do when we take SD6 down?" Sydney said somewhat dreamily, her arms still wrapped around Vaughn's shoulders tightly.  
  
Vaughn wanted to say that they might not live to see SD6 fall. He wanted to say that both of them could be killed for nothing more than sitting there as they were. A day ago he might. But now he knew what it was like, to feel the kind of guilt she dealt with on a daily basis. He'd dedicated his career to taking down SD6, now he was ready to dedicate his life to it. He wanted to hear the words even less than he wanted to say them. "Go to Disney World?" He asked seriously. Sydney smiled, having the sudden mental image of her and Vaughn waiting in the ridiculously long lines of a ridiculously childish ride.  
  
"I'll think of Danny. Nothing else, I'm just going to pull him into my head. I'm going to think of the wedding we didn't get to plan, I'm going to think of the kids that we didn't get to have, I'm going to think of the life I didn't get to lead. And I'm going to think about when we first met. I'm going to think about when he proposed, and then I'll think about walking into our apartment and finding him dead. And while I'm thinking of all that, I'm going to arrest Sloane myself. I'm going to put the handcuffs on his wrists and I lead him out of the building in front of everyone, and soon as I put him in the back of the car, and I'm going to know right then that that part of my life will be over." Sydney smiled and squeezed Vaughn's hand.  
  
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~  
  
"So now, when you're standing there next to me, you can think about Alice. And while I'm thinking of Danny and you're thinking of Alice, we're going to take those bastards down."  
  
Arvin Sloane pulled off the headphones and tossed them across the room with an angry flick of his wrist. 


	3. No More Fun & Games

1 A/N: I had this done a couple days ago, but I had to wait for my beta to okay it. The next chapter is going to be slow coming, probably, because it's action, and I hate writing action. Massively huge thanks to Jeanne, my beta and partner in crime/evil!Alias fics. Without her, this would be talking about 'four in heels' and we wouldn't be able to have these rousing debates on whether or not I should have used a comma or a period. When I take over the world, she's going to be my official editor, whether she likes it or not. DO YOU HEAR THAT, JEANNE?!?! But I'll give you a TV show or something, so you'll be happy or something.  
  
2  
  
3  
  
4 An End To All Things  
  
Part III – No More Fun & Games  
  
  
  
Sydney rolled her shoulders, working the kinks out as she walked up the stairs to her apartment. Her eyes were already half closed, a headache just waiting to explode into a full-blown migraine. She wondered if she had any painkillers left over from the dental surgery she'd had back last year, then decided that she could palm one of Francie's Demoral. Since she had an aversion to becoming a drug addict, and Sloane was sure to look down on that, she thought she'd stick with the hard liquor that they had buried in the cupboards somewhere. Nothing like a good trip down the ol' Drunken Fit Lane to make you forget about your life going to hell in a hand basket.  
  
This shit was just going to have to stop. Before she'd found out the truth about SD6, she'd run the occasional mission, most of it domestic, and rarely missed a class. Now, she was usually home less then four days a week and she was about a breath away from failing out of grad school. This wasn't the life she'd wanted, and there was no way out of it. It was a constant dance of one step forward, three steps back. Just when she thought she couldn't take another couple months of this stress, she remembered that she could be at this for the rest of her life.  
  
She groaned as she unlocked her door. That thought alone was reason enough to get drunk.  
  
Sydney nearly jumped out of her skin when she opened the door. Francie had pulled a chair right in front of the door and was sitting there, legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap. She looked perfectly innocent, other then sitting directly in front of the door. "Hey, Syd." She said in a bright way that had Sydney taking an instinctive step backwards.  
  
"Oh, hey Fran." She replied easily. "Why are you sitting in the doorway like that?"  
  
Francie smiled. "Because you have no excuses now. You're home relatively early, you don't have any papers to do, and…" She rose from her chair in front of the door. "…We are going shopping."  
  
Sydney looked blankly at Francie. "What? No we're not." She said. "Fran, I am *really* tired, can we just go tomorrow?" Sydney said quickly, resisting the urge to panic. Shopping was one thing. Shopping with Francie was quite another. Shopping with Francie was…scary to say the least. She tried on every article of clothing in a store, and then made you try it on so that she could get a second opinion.  
  
"You're not getting out of this, Syd." Francie said, grabbing her arm in a vice-like grip. "You've been avoiding this for weeks, so we're going before the bank drags you off on another stupid trip."  
  
"But…uh…but…" The day from Hell just got worse. "Can't I at least go change?" She said hopefully. She could crawl out the window and make a break for it that way. Maybe Vaughn's safe house had room for two.  
  
"Nope, you're not changing." Francie continued to drag Sydney towards her car. "Stop fighting me Syd, we're doing this."  
  
"Francie!" Sydney wheedled. "I just want to go to sleep. I'll go tomorrow with you, I *swear*."  
  
"Tomorrow, you'll have to go save the world again, one bank at a time." Francie opened the passenger door, effectively caging her friend in. "Now get in the car and lets go run ourselves into debt."  
  
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~  
  
"You're going to get me fired." Weiss muttered, but dropped the black backpack in front of Vaughn anyway. "Do you realize that if I would have gotten caught, I would have lost my job just as fast as you're going to when they find out what you're doing?"  
  
Vaughn ignored Weiss's muttered ranting and began unpacking the bag with the eagerness of a five-year-old on Christmas morning. The slim black laptop was wrapped safely in a towel and was enough to make him weep. But the files buried beneath it were the real prizes. "Thank you." He murmured, before flipping open the laptop and plugging it into the wall.  
  
"You're an odd little man." Weiss said after a long pause. He watched, not bothering to conceal his annoyance, as Vaughn flipped through the files. "You've got less then twenty-four hours left as Michael C. Vaughn. You could be writing nasty emails to anyone you've ever known. But you're spending this time working on a case that's out of your hands anyway.  
  
Vaughn ignored the twinge between his shoulders as Weiss oh-so-subtly reminded him of the little time he had left here. "Who'd they assign to Syd?" He asked, finally looking up from the computer screen.  
  
"Hopkins." Weiss smiled lightly. "Devlin figured if they assigned a grandmother of three to the Bristow case, Sydney wouldn't get too attached."  
  
Vaughn didn't know whether to laugh or blush. "Well, considering Hopkins, maybe Jack getting too attached is what they should worry about. Didn't her divorce just go through?"  
  
Weiss shivered at the mental image. "Please. I still have to work with these people."  
  
"No, seriously though." Vaughn scratched the back of his neck. "Why didn't they just reassign the case to you? You know Syd, you know the case, what's the point of bringing in a agent from another department?" Vaughn typed in his username and password and waited for the authorization to go through.  
  
"Because I'm such a…how do I put this…because I'm such a hottie, soon as Sydney had prolonged contact with me, she wouldn't be able to hold herself back. Her worshiping the very ground I walk on would be kind of counterproductive, don't you think?"  
  
Vaughn couldn't help the grin. "Interesting theory."  
  
"I have no idea, really. I, myself, assumed that the case would fall to me, but I don't know what they're doing."  
  
"Hmm." Vaughn signed into his email, then waited for the secondary password request to pop up. Because it usually took a minute, he turned back to the files. "Are they transferring it to Hopkins's department or is she coming to us?" Vaughn swore lightly. "To you that is."  
  
Weiss didn't miss the slip, and he debated some sort of comforting words. Since he had none, he stuck with a topic they could agree on. "It's staying with us, I think." He picked through Vaughn's untouched bag of fast food. "It'll be hard enough to bring one agent in, not less bringing in a whole new team."  
  
Vaughn considered this a moment. "Listen, I know this puts you in an uncomfortable position. But I'm going to ask anyway."  
  
"Then I'll say no, and you can talk me into it anyway, despite my better judgment."  
  
"Okay, I've got this generic, non-descript email set up--"  
  
"No." Weiss said immediately. "Absolutely not."  
  
"Look, I'm not asking for you to send me sensitive information, here. Just a general email letting me know things are going well, or what. You could act like you're talking about a sick cousin and you would never get in trouble for it."  
  
"This isn't about getting caught, Vaughn, I risk my ass so much for you I'm immune to it."  
  
"Then why not?" Vaughn deleted several emails without looking at them.  
  
"If anyone is to ever get suspicious of your new identity, it's a very simple process of tracing where the emails are coming from and find out who you are. I'm not risking you like that." Weiss snapped.  
  
"It's my risk to take." Vaughn shot back indignantly. "It's a matter of hours before they pull my clearance. Even with my new ID, you can be sure that Devlin is going to be sure that my I'm blocked from the SD6 case files."  
  
"Ever consider that there would be a reason for that?" Weiss asked coolly.  
  
Vaughn stared at Weiss. There was one last button he could push, and he already hated himself for it. "Well, if you don't want to, I'm sure Sydney will."  
  
Weiss blinked a moment. "She's smarter then to fall for that. She's rational enough to know when she's taking unnecessary risks."  
  
"Yeah, she knows, but she does them anyway, doesn't she? Plus, she feels pretty guilty about Sloane IDing me."  
  
"You're a bastard, Vaughn." Weiss said with a long sigh.  
  
Silently, Vaughn found a scrap of paper and scribbled the email address on the back, along with his new identity, Andrew Collins. Weiss pulled out his wallet and shoved the slip inside, beginning to mutter, "You're going to get yourself killed over this chick."  
  
"This isn't about Sydney." Vaughn said. "I've dedicated three years to this case. I lost my girlfriend because I worked too much on this case. She lost her life because of my connections to this case." Vaughn's voice cracked and he clamped his mouth shut. He battled back the bile that was rising in the back of his throat, and then spoke again. "This isn't about Sydney." He finished.  
  
They fell into silence, Weiss staring out the window, Vaughn typing furiously behind him. There wasn't much more that could be said. They both knew that in a few hours, a single black sedan would pull up at the curb and Vaughn would get in. And when he got out, he'd be Andrew Edward Collins, systems analyst for a computer company in North Carolina. Weiss knew once he left that night, it would be the last he'd see Vaughn. Vaughn knew that once Weiss left, his old life would be over. Neither of them chose to discuss it.  
  
''You Have Received A New Message from JB'  
  
Vaughn clicked the refresh button and waited for the new message to pop up. "Will you do me one more thing?" He asked Weiss as he clicked on the message. "Alice loved zinnias. Would you mind sending some to the funeral for me?"  
  
Weiss nodded. "I'm going to the funeral." Vaughn looked up, surprised.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"The parents are asking a lot of questions, so they want me to answer them." Weiss said simply. "I probably would have gone anyway, a sort of quassi-representation of you."  
  
"What are you going to tell her parents?" Vaughn thought of the fiercely protective Irish family, all seven brothers, and wondered if Weiss had any idea of what he was getting in to.  
  
"We checked up on them, they seem to be huge patriots, so we're going to tell them that Alice was working for us as a freelance agent." Weiss smiled. "First off, they'll think that its top secret and keep their mouths shut. Second, they'll know their daughter died with honor, which is the best gift I think anyone can give them right now."  
  
Vaughn didn't say a word, not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't. He wanted to be there, even though he knew Alice's funeral would have been pure hell. Vaughn felt he needed, if not deserved, trying to explain to her family why their Alice was taken from them. It was almost that he craved their suspicious looks; he craved their unanswerable questions.  
  
His eyes scanned over the words in the email before their meeting truly hit him. "Oh my god." He said, face going lax. "Oh dear god."  
  
"What?" Weiss said, unconsciously standing up straighter. "What's wrong?"  
  
"I just…oh *fuck*." Vaughn stood up quickly. "I just got an email from Jack Bristow." Vaughn began to head for the door.  
  
"Okay, what did it say?" Weiss said, sliding into work routine seamlessly.  
  
"It was warning me that he thinks Sloane has Sydney under tight surveillance, including listening devices." Vaughn swore once again, running a hand through his hair. "We need to get to Syd's."  
  
"Vaughn," Weiss said, sidestepping in front of him. "I'll go check on Syd, I'm sure everything is fine, you need to stay here." Even as he attempted to reassure Vaughn, Weiss was mentally calculating odds. They really weren't good.  
  
"Fuck that." Vaughn snapped, barely in control. "She's in danger, its my fault, fuck protection, I'm going."  
  
Weiss realized, first, that he wasn't going to be able to stop Vaughn from leaving that house once he walked out the door. Second, if there were really people going after Sydney Bristow tonight, he was going to need all the help he was going to get. Letting Vaughn leave the safe house was a massive breech of protocol, but at the moment, neither of them cared. "Alright, I'll go tell security what's up and have them call Devlin, you try Sydney's. If we're lucky, she's probably sitting at home watching HBO."  
  
A feeling of dread washed over Vaughn as he accepted Weiss cell phone.  
  
'We're going to take those bastards down.'  
  
Sydney's words echoed in his head as he dialed her home number first.  
  
"Hey, its Sydney, I'm not here right now…"  
  
That's when Vaughn started to pray.  
  
~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~  
  
Sydney hated to admit it. She really, really, loathed it. But somehow, without her consent, she'd ended up having a good time. When she'd gotten home all she'd wanted to do was curl up into a ball with a glass of merlot and stare off into space. She'd, instead, gone lingerie shopping. She didn't even like shopping that much. She might just have to forward her visa bill to Sloane because the whole thing was all is fault anyway. The thought mere thought of that made her smile, which two hours ago would have seemed ridiculous.  
  
Somewhere along the course of the night, Francie had made some call and then drug Sydney off to eat dinner with Charlie. It was some diner where the food was terrible and the waitress's manner's much worse, but somehow between Francie's constant nagging about having fun and Charlie's reports of his latest gig, Sydney had found herself relaxing and just letting all her problems go for the night. She knew they'd be right there waiting the next morning, but Sydney also knew if she didn't just give herself a night off, she was probably going to snap.  
  
"So, this woman gets up, she's totally wasted…" Charlie continued. "And she starts screaming that I look like her uncle. Which would have been terrible anyway, because she's this tiny little white chick who is maybe five-two in four inch heels. But I'm right in the middle of my second set, I'm doing great, the crowd is into it…"  
  
Sydney smiled as the story continued, feeling slightly guilty. She wasn't going to ever see Vaughn again, at least the way things were going now, but she was out having a good time with her friends. He wasn't even going to get to say goodbye to his friends.  
  
Francie parked the car and they all climbed out, mutterings of a 'quick' game or two of Boggle before they all called it a night.  
  
Charlie was still relating the experiences of his latest gig when Sydney grabbed the mail out of the box.  
  
"Look, Fran." Sydney began. "A letter from…" The letters fluttered to the porch, forgotten, when she felt the warmth of another body behind her.  
  
The grind of metal against metal was deafening as a gun cocked behind her head. 


End file.
